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Africa Orientale Italiana shall not fall! An historical Italy AAR

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unmerged(92380)

Second Lieutenant
Feb 5, 2008
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First AAR for me, so I hope everything will be ok.
I'm playing a DD ARMA 1.1 game, with DAIM installed

Inspired by recent threads in the general forum I decided to start this new AAR playing Italy the historical way. This means I’ll use some houserules. The AAR style will be mostly a gameplay style, as I have not much fantasy for amusing story lines. BTW, I hope everyone will still like this AAR.


House rules:
1) Playing with a modded difficulty. No penalties for the human player, no bonuses for the AI except for Allies and Comintern nations (+40% IC/resources, +20% manpower, +10% combat)
2) Italy must defend Ethiopia. No way for them to liberate it or ignore it.
3) Italy cannot expand earlier than it joins the war, except for Ethiopia and Albania.
4) Italy will join the war on June 10th, 1940.

Objectives:
1) Defend Ethiopia and clear Africa from Allied presence
2) Defend the homeland
3) Survive the war

General strategy

1) IC buildup to gain the 5th techteam
2) Most of the army will be deployed to Africa. The idea is to attack from Lybia, hold in Ethiopia and unload troops in Israel to attack the British from 3 spots.
3) Build a decent SAG which can sunk as much Allied tonnage as possible
4) Develop and employ naval bombers to use the Mediterranean as a Carrier. Conquer Malta, Cyprus and Crete.
5) No armored units.. Mobility will be ensured by MOT and MEC

Chapters.
1. A gift for the King
2. Turning Italy in an economic powerhouse
3. Reinforcing the Army
3. Reinforcing the Army (part 2)
4. Army Modernization Begins
5. World War begins.. earlier than expected!
6. Operazione Avamposto (Operation Outpost)
7. Waiting the baiting
8. War, at last.
9. A new world order?
[URL=http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showpost.php?p=8155659&postcount=235]10. From the Alps to the Indian Ocean [/URL]
 
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Guessing this should go over here in HoI2's AARs. ;)

Good luck. :)
 
First chapter. Italian Empire expanding and adding a fourth colony.


1936 starts with Italian tech teams researching four useful techs (rear supply dumps, basic machine tools, early light carrier, Early fighter) .

ricerca1.jpg

Mussolini needs less bounds and he moves Italy government one step towards authoritarian. Italy is now NationalSocialist.
The Armata d’Etiopia is broken in single unit corps, lead by the most capable Italian leaders.

Italian production is concentrated towards factories. A serial of obsolete CA 2 ships is also put into production. These ships will be part of Italian SAGs against the RN in the med. The Italian CL in queue from the start is maintained (and comes ready on the 17th, substituted by one more factory), and a long serial of air bases is started (to potentiate air bases where needed)

Prod1.jpg

The first battle of the Ethiopian campaign takes place in Dese, where 2 Italian units engage 2 Ethiopian militia units on the 11th of January. Shortly after, another engagement takes place in Dire Dawa. Three days later, the first victory of the Italian colonial war arrives.

battaglia1.jpg

On the 14th of January a flanking attack is launched on Moyale by Graziani and Caracciolo di Feroleto units, with a couple more units in reserve. 3 days later, the battle is won.

On the 24th of January the troops which just reached Dire Dawa launch their final attack on Addis Abeba, annihilating any resistance in less than 2 days. The fall of Ethiopia is to come as soon as the first soldier under Mj Romero rule will set foot on the capital. A few days later, Ethiopia becomes the 4th jewel of the crown!

romero.jpg

The same day the Italian cabinet meets and reviews the situation. In case of a future war agains other powers it is imperative to form a defensive line in Ethiopia.
If Ethiopia falls, Italian image will be greatly hampered, and that should never happen.

The cabinet immediately orders the expanding of Ethiopian infrastructures on the three mountain provinces of the new colony. That way Italian troops could hold better any future fight.

The same day, it's decided to start a big propaganda campaign to convince the Italians to leave to the rich Ethiopian farms.

prod2.jpg
 
Nice! I dont think Ive ever seen a gameplay AAR with Italy, so this should be good.
 
I don't see why you arn't building a few armoured units, no more than 5 would be realistic though. These will be needed in the desert, trust me. ;)

Anyways, good luck! Consider me subscribed. :)
 
Chapter two. Turning Italy in an economic powerhouse.

Il Duce and his ministers laid out an ambitious plan for the following years. In 1936 and 1937 several industries were to be developed among the country, with the aim to match France economy.

Furthermore, a vast army improvement plan had been prepared, with reinforcements and new equipment for the Italian army on schedule from 1938 onwards.

The Air Force was another hot topic.. In the end il Duce decided that Italy would have built only 4 kind of planes: INT and ESC fighters, TAC and NAV bombers.

There was also reports of French and British spies on mission in Italy. It was decided to give priority to the counter espionage activity.

On 3rd April 1936 another submarine flotilla was finally ready. The freed up industrial power was redirected to the production of supplies for the army.

sotto.png

Research proceeded at full speed, with Montecatini researching Basic Machine Tools on late May. The increase in industrial power was used to start producing light carriers, after a brief boost to supplies production. In the same month Lancia completed his research on Rear Area Supply Dumps and Natta could begin working on Agrichemistry, to increase Italian available manpower. June was the month Fiat was ordered to work on better artillery pieces and Italo Balbo starts researching Battlefield destruction doctrine (Ground attacks more effective)

ricerca2.png

In mid July the first Air base is completed in the Addis Abeba province, providing a useful base for the AOI tactical bombers groups.

airbase1.png

Also, Spanish Civil War begins. Il Duce decides to help Franco out, as it seems he has fairly good chances of winning the war, controlling Madrid from the start.

scw.png

After a few “dead” months, in mid September Fiat finally finishes working on Early artillery and starts researching Rear Area Vehicle Repair Shop. Just a month after, Macchi can start working on Basic Escort Fighters and Breda can begin the testing for a new type of Cavalry division. Only at the beginning of December Montecatini ends its research and allows Lancia to begin researching better agricultural machines.

ricerca3.png

On 26th October the first new Heavy Cruiser is ready.
The new industrial power granted by the Improved Machine Tools researched is invested in one more CVL serial at the end of the year.
Cavagnari screams in joy, thinking about how powerful is going to become the Regia Marina.

CA1.png


About at the same time, the fascist effort to develop the country begins to pay off.

ics.png

Il Duce, loyal to his long term plan of defending Ethiopia and the new Italian settlers orders the construction of land forts near Addis Abeba and to continue with the expansion of the airfield there.
 
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Chapter 2. Turning Italy into an economic powerhouse (continued)

1937 begins with the good news of a new factory completed near Bologna. The government decides to push Italy a bit more along the hawk lobby line.

slider1.png

A week later, Italy decides to start selling away old and unusable ships to countries with poor navies. Germany is the first to buy some of those old CLs and DDs in return for over 500k supplies (several days of production)

trade1.png

Italian efforts to increase Ethiopian infrastructures begins to pay off.

infra1.png


Between February and April a lot of research project starts...

ricerca4.png

The UK, fearing the mighty Italian industrial development, tries to delay it the dirty way..

trade.png

Hitler is a bit shy... Maybe URSS 300+ ICs started frightening him..

noanticomintern.png

May starts well for Italy. Addis Ababa air base keep expanding, while more and more spies are found by the counterespionage.
In the meanwhile, Stalin tries to exploit Hitler weakness.. Soviet ships are seen sailing right before Naples, with great surprise for the Regia Marina headquarter.

stalin.png

Perhaps it was an attempt to get some details on the RM Aquila, the first CVL to be fielded by the Regia Marina? The same day Germany buys another 5 obsolete destroyers for about 370k supplies.
Two months later the Heavy Cruiser Carlo Alberto is also ready to begin operations.

cvl.png


Next page
 
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@Maj von Mauser: Armored divisions are surely useful, but I can get more mobile corps sticking to MOT and MEC. I plan to equip everything with SP-ART brigades and switch to Cavallero (+10% speed) when the war starts, so mass mobility is more important than firepower.

@HKslan: I don't plan to MC any other Axis member. That will probably lead to a more difficult game, as Stalin is already swimming in ICs..
 
Is building that infrastructure actually worth it?
 
Nice update, although I think you should have tried to get alittle more for those ships...

Good luck! :)
 
@wilegfass, rcduggan, SouthCarolinian and Fernando Torres: Thanks! I hope this will be interesting.. I can see an hard fight coming for that worthless piece of land.

@germanpeon. The idea is that Allied troops are going to be superior for number and organization. If I want to successfully defend Ethiopia I need to have superior combat modifiers.
Infrastructures are cheap and increase my units ESE, so I believe they are worth in that few strategic provinces which will need to hold until troops from Northern Africa arrive.

@Maj von Mauser: I know I could have, but that would be exploiting the trading system :D
 
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